Re: Should Ghana Consider Proportional Representation?

What beat my imagination is the fact that Proportional Representation has been around for some time now, at least before the year 2000, 2004, and 2008 –the Golden Era of the UP Tradition; yet such a system did not capture the attention of the New Patriotic Party.

Nevertheless, soon as they find themselves in the opposition once again, with no possible chances of making a comeback, they want Ghana’s electoral system changed in order to give them some advantage, and most importantly, just when UK Conservatives, another rightwing party, has won the election under such a system,. First, it was ROPAA, then, electronic voting, and, now, Proportional Representation.

It would not be surprising to see the NPP proposing, before the next election, DNA verification for voters in the northern and eastern corridors of the country just to authenticate Ghanaian voters.

What if the Labor Party had won most seats in the UK election, or had Nick Clegg and his Liberal Democrats rather joined forces with the Labor party instead of the Conservatives, would the NPP chief propagandist, Gabby Otchere Darko, find the PR system remotely attractive?

It seems the NPP has still not come to terms with why they lose the 2000 election and have gone into the lab, spending sleepless nights cooking up figures to convince themselves and what they presume to be a gullible public. Ghanaians are discerning, NPP; Ghanaians are discerning… please curb your desperation for power.

Whether the word is Gerrymandering or Jerrymandering, with the NDC standing eight and half regions strong, NPP does not stand a chance of coming back to power in the foreseeable future. Lest we forget, even 2004 was a tough win for the then sitting President J A Kufuor, a questionable one at that. If not for the pacifist in the person of the then candidate and now President John Evans Atta Mills, the bloodshed would have been uncontrollable.

What Gabby and the rest of NPP propaganda hirelings have soon forgotten is that, the same system they would want to change, is the same system that gave them victory in the 2000 election, and all the same, a (questionable) victory in 2004...so why the call for change now?

What the NPP propaganda apparatchiks are quick to dismiss, all of a sudden, is the undeniable fact that Ghana's form of democracy has been hailed as one of the truest/purest democracies in the world. It has been hailed in the western media as one of the most transparent and well conducted elections in the developing world. In other words, the system works, and it works in a way more admirable than that of some of the western countries that are credited for the very form of government/democracy that we emulate.

In Ghana ‘s current form of democratic dispensation, the presidential and/or parliamentary candidates directly appeal to the electorate, as party representatives or independents, and the electorate cast their votes for their choice or the person they deem best qualified to lead them.

Gabby argues that PR system minimizes wastage of votes. In every system of voting, there would certainly be wastage of some sort. Does a system whereby the people vote for a parliamentary candidate, yet do not have a (direct) say in the election of the president or prime minister (top-most decision-maker) not a form of disenfranchisement or a misrepresentation of their will. What is the general populace or electorate would otherwise not vote for whomever the majority in the PR system choose as its leader? Would that be fair to the electorate? NPP should not presume what is fair to them is automatically fair to the people. Let it be known that Labor suffered a beaten at the polls mainly because of Gordon Brown who was imposed upon the good people of Britain when Tony Blair abruptly/strategically resigned a year into his second or third term in office, making way for Gordon Brown who was the party leader to take the reign as the prime minister.

A Labor majority in the last UK election would have automatically given Gordon Brown a nod at the premiership --much to the chagrin of the majority of the electorate, hence the overwhelming defeat that Labor suffered at the polls. Now, could Ghanaians be acceptable of a system whereby they must accept whomever the majority dusts up and present to them as their president or prime minister --after having had a say in who presided over them in more than four good election or 16 years of a democratic system they have embraced so overwhelmingly? I don’t think so.

The New Patriotic Party would vehemently argue for whatever system would give them the slightest edge to return to power; be it abandoning the current democratic system to adopt federalism (as they’ve chartered in pre-independence); premiership (as they had under the whole two year tenure of Dr. Kofi Busia), a parliamentary system (as practiced in the UK); or monarchism (as the current fromtomfrom drum beats seems to suggest). You name it...anything that gives them an edge would do.

It begs the question, why render the electoral system unfair and grossly inefficient only when NPP finds itself in opposition.... Gabby, please…spare us.

May God/Allah continue save us from these traitors and state-looters!

Fela O Fela Fela Gbagbladzah Felaofela@gmail.com The author is a communication strategist of the “ruling” National Democratic Congress. He resides in the US of A.